394 FIRST APPEARANCE OF NEW SPECIES CHAP. xx. 



vigorous as those of their predecessors, and that they were as 

 capable, under favourable circumstances, of repeopling the 

 earth with their kind. The manner in which some species 

 are now becoming scarce and dying out, one after the other, 

 appeared to me to favour the doctrine of the fixity of the 

 specific character, showing a want of pliancy and capability 

 of varying, which ensured their annihilation whenever changes 

 adverse to their well-being occurred ; time not being allowed 

 for such a transformation as might be conceived capable of 

 adapting them to the new circumstances, and of converting 

 them into what naturalists would call, new species.* 



But while rejecting transmutation, I was equally opposed 

 to the popular theory that the creative power had diminished 

 in energy, or that it had been in abeyance ever since man had 

 entered upon the scene. That a renovating force, which had 

 been in full operation for millions of years, should cease to 

 act while the causes of extinction were still in full activity, or 

 even intensified by the accession of man's destroying power, 

 seemed to me in the highest degree improbable. The only 

 point on which I doubted was, whether the force might not 

 be intermittent instead of being, as Lamarck supposed, in 

 ceaseless operation. Might not the births of new species, like 

 the deaths of old ones, be sudden ? Might they not still es 

 cape our observation ? If the coming in of one new species, 

 and the loss of one other which had endured for ages, should 

 take place annually, still, assuming that there are a million 

 of animals and plants living on the globe, it would require, 

 I observed, a million of years to bring about a complete 

 revolution in the fauna and flora. In that case, I imagined 

 that, although the first appearance of a new form might be as 

 abrupt as the disappearance of an old one, yet naturalists 

 might never yet have witnessed the first entrance on the stage 



* Laws of Extinction, Principles chap. v. to xi. inclusive ; and 9th ed. 

 of Geology, 1st ed. 1832, vol. ii. ch. xxxvii. to xlii. inclusive. 1853. 



